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Saturday, February 4, 2017

Sarawak counts how many stateless Chinese it has

Those who married women from China or Indonesia may have failed to get their children citizenship.

KUCHING: The Sarawak United People’s Party (SUPP) will count the exact number of stateless Chinese in Sarawak to enable them to acquire Malaysian citizenship.

SUPP president Sim Kui Hian said he had asked the party’s elected representatives and leaders throughout the state to assist in the process.

“We are awaiting feedback from them to forward to the relevant authorities for action,” he said when met in Lundu where he had joined Barisan Nasional (BN) leaders accompanying BN candidate Jamilah Anu to the nomination centre for the Tanjong Datu by-election yesterday.

Sim said stateless Chinese in the state lived not only in the urban centres but in the rural areas as well.

“Some of the men have married women from Indonesia or China. When they failed to register such marriages, their children born in the state, unfortunately, became non-citizens,” he said.

Sim raised the issue with Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi during a Chinese New year gathering here last Friday.

He said he was glad that the federal government was committed to finding a solution to the issue.

Zahid had said that a task force would be formed under the state National Registration Department to specifically tackle the issue.

He had also said that the task force would also set up mobile units to reach out to the stateless Chinese in the interior. -FMT